


Change is Hard (Who Does THIS Belong To?)

by Aoife



Category: Anthropomorphism, Babylonian Mythology, Irish Mythology, Organization for Transformative Works RPF, Persian Mythology, Proto-Indo-European Mythology
Genre: Did I Just Break the Fourth Wall?, Enough Footnotes To Be A Pratchett Novel, Gen, Just Add Kittens, Probably Meta, Somewhat Cracked, What Have I Done, What Was I Thinking?, Why Did I Write This?, Writing Under the Influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Aoife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what happens to your dreams when one is both an author and a wrangler and has spent their evening wrangling very obscure tags.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change is Hard (Who Does THIS Belong To?)

_Somewhere in the space between the Internet and the Unconscious..._

"So this is her newest obsession is it?" A woman with tumbled black feathers of hair and blackberry lips wearing aged leather armor approached the odd contraption curiously. "She's been spending an awful lot of time working with it, recently, which means one of us should probably take responsibility for it - or find someone else to." She brushed one finger over it's surface and it sprang to life, trying to suck her into itself, and one of her companions pulled her back from it abruptly. "And it’s alive as well. How very … odd."

Skin and hair a colorless pale, the other woman circled round it poking at the machine with a broad, flat sword which materialised from nowhere. She deftly dodged it's attempts to suck her in as well. "It's odd what humans beliefs can do to abstract concepts and inanimate objects. I think our priestess and the others have been calling it the _Wrangulator_?" 

The machine made another attempt to snatch her up.

Hooves prancing, mane the color of an aged chestnut, their third companion pulled her back from it’s grasp by her plait. “You don’t really want to suck Anahita1 in; I don’t think you have anywhere to put her right now." 

The machine whirred busily and spat a slip of paper at her.

“ _’If in doubt, throw it to No Fandom’_?" The raven haired woman growled at the machine. “I don’t belong in No Fandom! Hang on - what am I talking about? I don’t even know what these Fandoms are." She huffed in annoyance. 

Leather armor creaking, the woman took one menacing step closer to the Wrangulator. This time it captured her before either of her companions could pull her away. It whirred for a long moment and then she reappeared on the other side of it, eyes flashing and sword in hand. Several more strips of paper like those with the previous message on them were stapled to her armor and she ripped them off angrily.

“Morríghan2. Irish Mythology. So not _’No Fandom’_ then, Machine?"

“Calm down, xâhar3. There’s no reason for you to have to deal with this. Just secede it to one of us like you did her language studies when they started to irritate you."

“But she’s been calling on _me_ when dealing with this, “she waved distainful a hand in the wrangulator’s direction, "thing."

“Only because she always does that first. And then _you_ tell her to do otherwise and she comes looking for guidance from the rest of us."

Tossing her mane, Héḱwonā4 stamped one hoof on the ground again with a gavel’s ringing call to order. "But back to that matter at hand. Which of us is going to take responsibility for her madness this time?" 

"She told The Hunt5 to take it, which makes it mine."

“You forget yourself, daughter; The Hunt is as much mine as yours when it comes to her. So no, that does not make this yours by default, especially when you seem to disdain it so." The wrangulator spluttered behind them and the three turned to see what it was doing. 

It wheezed and spat out a _manul_ 6. And then another, and another, and Morrighan and Héḱwonā both took a step back. “And apparently The Machine has an opinion. I think this makes it your territory, Anahita, yes?"

“You’re not afraid of …" the pale deity shook her head. “Never mind. Given where some of her research for this has gone, it actually makes sense for me to take it anyway," she smiled. “Though that does mean we need to find her something else to do that you can claim Héḱwonā." She stepped up next to the wrangulator and brushed a hand over its surface, allowing it to tag her.

“That felt beyond weird." She plucked the tags off her dress carefully. “Ishtar7, Babylonian Mythology … oh my. I do hope that someone is going to fix that. We’re not _quite_ the same individual. Héḱwonā, xâhar?" She shoo’ed the felis manul away from The Machine.

Morríghan plucked the tags off Héḱwonā’s mane once she’d reappeared. “Horse, No Fandom." 

The Mare shook her head, vexed by the error as she would have been by gnats and flies in high summer. 

“I’ll give our priestess time to fix that one. I’ve been watching her learn the system and I know why it made it. Now, as we’ve all been catalogued and Anahita has decided to take the wretched thing on, can we please go and find somewhere more convivial for the rest of tonight’s discussion? Preferably somewhere out of reach of our priestess and her _technology_." The last word was spit out like the curse it truly was.

**Author's Note:**

> 1: [Anahita, goddess of rivers](http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/anahid)
> 
> 2: [Morríghan, goddess of death, war, protection](http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/aigw/aigw01.htm)
> 
> 3: [xâhar - Persian for _sister_](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1)
> 
> 4: [Héḱwonā, proto-Indo-European horse goddess](http://ceisiwrserith.com/pier/deities.htm#11)
> 
> 5: [The Wild Hunt](http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/forhunt.html)
> 
> 6: [Pallas’ Cat, a small breed of wild feline named after the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas, who first described the species in 1776 under the binomial _Felis manul_. Native to the mountainous areas of Persia.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallas's_cat)
> 
> 7: [Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of fertility, life](http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/ishtar.htm)


End file.
